The present disclosure relates to monitoring an individual for cumulative concussions, and more specifically, to methods, systems and computer program products for using sensors in a helmet to monitor a user for cumulative concussions.
Generally speaking, safety is a primary concern for both users of helmets and manufacturers of helmets. Helmets are used by individuals that participate in activities that have risk of head trauma, such as the area of sports, biking, motorcycling, etc. While helmets have traditionally been used to provide protection from blunt force trauma to the head, an increased awareness of concussion causing forces has motivated a need for advances in helmet technology to provide increased protection against concussions. A concussion is a type of traumatic brain injury that is caused by a blow to the head that shakes the brain inside the skull due to linear or rotational accelerations. Recently, research has linked concussions to a range of health problems, from depression to Alzheimer's, along with a range of brain injuries. Unlike severe traumatic brain injuries, which result in lesions or bleeding inside the brain and are detectable using standard medical imaging, a concussion is often invisible in brain tissue, and therefore only detectable by means of a cognitive change, where that change is measurable by changes to brain tissue actions, either neurophysiological or through muscle actions caused by the brain and the muscles resulting effects on the environment, for example, speech sounds.
Currently available helmets use accelerometers to measure the forces that the helmet, and therefore the head of the user, experiences. These accelerometers can be used to indicate when a force experienced by a helmet exceeds a threshold level that indicates that the impact was sufficiently large enough to cause a traumatic brain injury to the user. However, currently available helmets are not configured to track the cumulative effects of impacts that fall below the threshold used to indicate possible traumatic brain injuries to the user.